Lisa Mason is creating stories, books, screenplays, movie reviews, and more on Patreon!
About Me
I’ve published eleven novels including Summer of Love, a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Recommended Book of the Year, The Gilded Age, a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Public Library Recommended Book, a collection of previously published fiction, Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, three screenplays, and forty stories and novellas in magazines and anthologies worldwide. My 1989 Omni story, “Tomorrow’s Child”, sold outright as a feature film in 2001 to Universal Pictures. But that sale occurred eighteen years ago. Will the movie ever happen? Who knows?
I live in the San Francisco Bay area with my artist husband, Tom Robinson, and our Siamese-Angora cat (a breed otherwise known as a rag doll). Athena.
CHROME is my new speculative fiction novel.
Why Patreon?
Books take me years to research and write. Stories, even, may take months. If I try to rush, the result never comes out good.
I wish I could have written hundreds of books and stories like some other authors. But I couldn’t. I have too much respect for you, the reader, and for the work itself. The work is my legacy. The work will last long after I’m gone.
When a writer sells a book to a traditional publisher, typically that writer signs up for a modest advance against which a miniscule percentage of earnings are charged before a royalty is paid out—every six months. When a writer, rebelling against the System as so many traditionally published writers are, goes to publish independently, there’s a huge personal investment in production, distribution, and promotion.
But I’m not on Patreon to complain that the life of a writer and an artist is difficult. You can read such complaints anywhere. And they’re legitimate complaints—that’s why Patreon exists.
No, I’m on Patreon because something terrible and unexpected happened to me.
In July, 2018, I was walking around Lake Merritt on a sunny afternoon, with the dog-walkers, the moms and baby strollers, the bicyclists and joggers, as I’ve done virtually every day since 1996—rain or shine, hot or cold, summer or winter, three and a half miles—when a man jumped out of the bushes and confronted me on the sidewalk. He tried to beat me up, I fended him off, then he shoved me into two lanes of oncoming traffic on the street. To avoid plunging into the traffic, I backpedaled with my feet, and fell. The police apprehended him, I went off in an ambulance to a hospital where I underwent three hours of surgery under general anesthetic for a fractured hip and a broken thigh.
Now it’s a year later and I can’t walk like I did before. Half a mile to the market and back takes nearly an hour. I can’t walk three miles daily to my publishing office, where I earned a salary. The Attack has inflicted me—a former ballet dancer, a swimmer, and an athlete—with a partial disability, daily pain, and a nasty limp. Other complications may be ensuing.
That’s why Patreon
I’m prepared to give you, my Patrons, in exchange for your sustenance, my best efforts on a monthly basis.
The Tiers
Tier One
$ 4
Essential Sustenance
Thank you for your essential support! You’ll receive The Essential Digest for the month, including a blog about life, publishing, or someone special, an original healthy recipe, and a book or movie review.
Tier One is up and running with the Premier Issue of the Essential Digest!
I’m still figuring out how to post the next three Tiers, which are ready to go. (The website is not easy to use.)
Tier Two
$ 6
Vital Sustenance
The Essential Digest plus an original Lisa Mason story previously published in hard-to-find anthologies or magazines, or a brand-spanking-new story that the rest of the readers haven’t seen—yet. Plus an interview with questions and answers about the story.
Tier Three
$ 8
Necessary Sustenance
The Essential Digest, plus a Lisa Mason story with an interview, plus chapters from my new speculative novel, CHROME. As soon as the book is done, Tier Three Patrons will receive the entire ebook of CHROME. After CHROME is done, Tier Three Patrons will receive sequential chapters of my previous novels and/or a new novel in progress, after which you’ll receive the entire ebook.
Tier Four
$ 10
Nutritious Sustenance
The Essential Digest, plus all of the features available to tiers above, plus my ongoing memoir, “Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones”, about the violent criminal attack on me, the extensive aftermath (medically, financially, and legally), and my thoughts about where we go from here.
The Essential Digest, Premier Issue, August 2019
For the Premier August 2019 Issue of the Essential Digest at Tier One, Essential Sustenance, I’m including a blog about the stack of YA fantasy books a neighbor gave me and a critique of those books, my recipe for vegetarian spicy bean stew, and a movie review of “Aquaman”.
The August story at Tier Two, Vital Sustenance, is “Crazy Chimera Lady,” a lovely fantasy inspired by our adoption of Athena. Yes, it has a Happily Ever After ending. Plus The Story of Athena and further remarks about inspirations for the story.
For all of the above, plus chapters from my new speculative novel, CHROME, join Tier Three, Necessary Sustenance. Join Tier Four, Nutritious Sustenance for all of the above plus the first installment of my memoir, “Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones”, about the violent criminal attack on me.
I have many more Tiers in mind, including autographed print books, handmade artwork, and small sculptures, but let us start with these four tiers. Thank you so much for your patronage!
Go To https://www.patreon.com/lisamasonfantasyandsciencefictionwriter?alert=2 and join Tier One.
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, blogs, interviews, roundtables, cute pet pictures, Tom Robinson’s bespoke art and jewelry, forthcoming news, and more!
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